It’s that time again, when I have to learn my lines. I find it harder and harder as the years pass, and I heard from the actor Tom Conti (speaking on the breakfast show sofa) that the memory is like a muscle. Well mine is like a shellfish, utterly closed and full up with a whole anthology of important things, like the lyrics (and words) of the Sound of Music and South Pacific. (Photos are of Gerry and I at the ‘Singalong Sound of Music’ in London. We were hoarse afterwards.)

I gobble down Vitamin B12 in the hope that it will help me retain the few lines allotted to me in this current production. It is called I am a Camera, and it is a play adapted from “The Berlin Stories” by Christopher Isherwood. I only have about 4 pages, in the last couple of scenes, but the character does chatter on when she gets the chance. The film Cabaret was adapted from this story and although quite different I recognise a lot of the same lines.

Funny how you remember poems learned in the days of yore. I have visions of Penang Hill when I was nine, sitting under a rain tree, looking down through the jungles to the city of Georgetown and learning Psalm 121…

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. 

My help cometh even from the Lord: who hath made Heaven and earth.

I went back to visit Uplands School a few years ago, and as I tramped through the overgrown grasses, (being wary of the snake spoor) I remembered the black cobra curled up on the white towels that made Mrs Lily shriek.

Also have visions of learning the whole of Casablanca… The boy stood on the burning deck, whence all but he had fled etc. and over the years I have spent hours lost in poetry books remembering the old friends of English teachers. ‘Learn this by Monday or else…’: Cargoes and the Quinquireme of Ninevah, The Highwayman and his ribbon of moonlight, and ‘on either side the river lies, the Lady of Shallott is busy with her mirror.

Oh I loved them all, and later I suppose there was Shakespeare, but I don’t remember so much, just snippets, ‘How shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ I only remember that because a boyfriend once wrote the sonnet in a card when I was sixteen, and I committed it to my heart, as you do!

So what I’m really saying is, my memory, a bit like my abdominal  muscles, is non existent from lack of use. I will persevere.

Ballet is wonderful. I am now going to buy some pink shoes. That shows how committed I am. Watched a fantastic documentary called The Agony and the Ecstasy covering a year with the English National Ballet.

It follows the young Russian lead, a mere boy of 20 and his Czeck ballerina and all 60 little swans. So much pain, and bleeding bunions, and operations and for what? A glorious couple of hours of sheer perfection. A TV critic asked was it sadistic voyeurism that makes it such compelling viewing… the sacrifice of youth to such a gruelling life. Whatever. I, in my mid 50s, may have missed the boat, but I can still do one and half hours with Vincent, who is just as fierce a teacher and I am proud to say that I now have NO pain after the class. The muscles are learning what they are there for!

This week I went on safari with Dilly around the lovely villages of East Lothian, where we walked on Yellowcraig sands and viewed Fidra Lighthouse, and even ate our packed lunch in the front of the car like good British tourists!

I am a great believer in biorhythms. Usually check them out every week or so, just to see where I am in the world of ups and downs. Well, this week I must be very low as I have been slaughtered on a nightly basis by John and his evil good luck on the backgammon board. I also do the Chinese Fortune sticks which have been horrible in their predictions, and the fortune telling cards. All this mumbo jumbo and sadly it all seems to be true.

Years ago, my friend Irene and I drove with a purpose out to Portobello beach armed with some fresh ginger which we wrapped up in sea weed, and then we shouted out a spell to the rippling waves and cast out the offering to great Neptune of the Sea. (Can’t remember the spell unfortunately, but basically it asks for us to be transported.) Before the year’s end I was in Vietnam and she was in Florida!!!

And now it’s Sunday afternoon, and I am going to eat some of my Bishop’s Cake (complete with Angelica) and you can see how like a cathedral window it is! HA HA!